Ethical Considerations on the Use of Archived Testimonies in Holocaust Research: Beyond the IRB Exemption

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that ethical problems may occur in qualitative research even if it draws on seemingly safe, "exempt" data. Drawing on J.L. Jacobs' concept of "double vision," I describe a number of ethical issues that arose in a project using archived oral Holocaust testimonies; these included concerns about using pseudonyms and identification numbers instead of subjects' real names and problems with coding the testimonies and writing up the results. Despite these concerns, I conclude that double vision need not always be problematic, and can actually help identify guidelines for producing work that is both scientifically and ethically sound.

Representing Gender and Sexual Dissidence in Southern Africa

“…I initiated this new project in part to understand the cultural, temporal, and national specificity of political homophobia in different African nations and to undermine racist assumptions that Africans are homophobic (Epprecht 2008). Although I am not currently "in the field" in the ways Barton (2011), González-López (2011, and Rupp and Taylor (2011) are, I am reminded of how representational ethics affect qualitative researchers engaged in conventional fieldwork and those of us who are not in the field (Einwohner 2011). In my current research on political homophobia in sub-Saharan African nations, I remain mindful of how digging in SWAPO's past for evidence of homophobic rhetoric has revived some of the same ethical dilemmas that emerged in my ethnographic research on LGBT organizing in Namibia and South Africa.…”

Belonging and ‘Unbelonging’: Jewish refugee and survivor women in 1950s Britain

“…Discussing the use of holocaust testimonies from a social science perspective Rachel Einwohner asks whether subjecting the text of oral testimonies to qualitative analysis 'detracts from the humanity of the individual survivor'. 15 Einwohner makes use of Janet Jacobs's concept of 'double vision' to characterise these ethical dilemmas.…”

Afterword: The Ethics of Risk, Power, and Representation

“…Reflecting on the ethical standards they learned in their academic training and past experience, the authors show the importance of placing participant risk at the center of their ethical concerns (González-López 2011), especially in "ethically important moment[s]" (Einwohner 2011). Although qualitative researchers cannot predict all possible risks to their participants in advance, we can seek to be "engaged and empathetic" in the process (Alexander 2010, p. 175), to maintain a relationship of trust over time, to treat consent as a process that is reestablished on a regular basis and renegotiated at any time (Ramcharan and Cutcliffe 2001), and to work cooperatively with our participants to detect and reduce these risks.…”